


Covenant

by joban_disaster



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Early Modern Era, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Protective Aramis, Worried Musketeers, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 15:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 6,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16452452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joban_disaster/pseuds/joban_disaster
Summary: (She hasn't had a panic attack in front of anyone since she was thirteen.)"It's okay."(She hadn't been able to breathe until he held her.)"I've got you."





	1. Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> General content warnings for this work: implied sexual context; PTSD and flashbacks to canon sexual assault.
> 
> Individual chapters will contain specific content warnings.

The first time Ana meets a musketeer she's thirteen, not-quite-girl, not-quite-queen, stranger in a strange land.

" _Alteza_." The soldier greets her in rough Spanish, handing her down from her carriage with much more fluidity than with which he speaks. " _Bienvenida a Francia_."

" _Gracia, don mosquetero_ ," she murmurs back with all the composure she can manage. She makes sure her hands are tucked in her skirts so no one can see her trembling. " _J'apprécie votre accueil_." Her accent is flawless.

(She practiced this phrase in front of the mirror for weeks.)

The musketeer bows his head politely. "A pleasure to greet you, Majesty." He steps aside, letting her drink in the astounding glory of the Louvre for the first time. Though she much prefers the soaring towers of her palace outside of Madrid, she can't help but be impressed by the elegant wings and sparkling windows in front of her. A rush of homesickness makes her shudder.

"Anne!" The exuberant voice shocks Ana from her thoughts and she almost jumps at her French name. "Welcome to Paris!"

With a flush at her lack of etiquette— _Papá_ would be ashamed!—, Ana turns her attention to her beaming fiancé, standing at the front of a crowd of frocked, whispering nobles. She drops into a low curtsy, lowering her eyes. "Your Majesty."

Louis XIII of France bounces—bounces! Who is this boy-king?— up to her and snatches her hand to his lips. She can't help her eyes widening at his lack of grace. "It is wonderful to meet my fiancée! I had been told of your beauty but you are radiant in person!"

(They've been betrothed since she was eleven and could barely understand her own femininity, let alone the concept of marriage. Now, holding herself with rigid delicacy in front of her husband-to-be, she feels almost as lost as she did then.)

"I— ah—" She curses herself internally for her lack of French, grasping for the words. "Thank you for your greetings. It's a pleasure to finally meet you." She can't help but glance at the musketeer at her back. His presence is warm and steady, and she takes a breath and straightens her spine. "May we continue inside? I would rest."

"Yes, yes, of course!" The king spins around and nearly runs into the Louvre. In a state of near-shock, she follows more sedately. _Small steps. Straight back. Head high. No expression. Follow what_ Papá _says: obey, flatter, impress._ The predatory eyes of the court follow her every move and she raises her chin.

(Ana may be thirteen, not-quite-girl, not-quite-queen, stranger in a strange land, but she is _infanta_ , eldest daughter of King Felipe III, and she'll be damned if she'll let her new land intimidate her. She is _Habsburg_. She does not falter.)

The musketeer's footsteps echo gently behind her, a constant support. Softly, over her shoulder, Ana asks him, " _Don mosquetero_ , what is your name?"

"Treville, Majesty," he responds quietly.

"Thank you for your guard, Treville." _My name is Anne. Ana is dead._


	2. Admirer

The musketeers are a subtle, constant presence around the palace, Anne notices. Their pauldrons catch the light from the windows when they pass, and the ladies always titter after they enter the presence of the king to report. Treville flits in and out of the king's audiences, always offering her a polite nod with warmth in his eyes.

As she acclimates to French life, she can't help but notice the soldiers' sleek forms clad in rough leathers, feeling heat burn in her cheeks when she finds her eyes tracing strong shoulders. She always makes sure to smile at the king after the meetings.

Her first impression of the king as a boy has held firm in their personal life. Brought up _infanta_ , destined to be queen, Anne had been expected to learn bedroom tricks as thoroughly as cutthroat political maneuvering. But, oh, she'd been so, so young, and men so, so alien.

(She is fourteen and girl-queen and intercourse with the king is heavy and graceless and sweaty. She does not like it. For the first time, she appreciates her sister's lessons on how to escape an audience because of "the feminine weakness, Majesty.")

The king does not seem to mind. For the first time, she wonders if the problem with their sex life isn't with her, but with her gender.

He asks her if she's pregnant every month for a year. It shames her to say no and see the disappointment in his eyes.


	3. Watcher

She finds herself intrigued when there emerge three musketeers the cardinal hates and the king favors more than the others. They move with the same fluid ease as the other soldiers but as one unit, more in tune with the others' movements than she's ever seen before. She hears them called _les inséparables_ and smiles to herself.

(Anne is so rarely interested in anything these days, fifteen years old and just barely more queen than girl, more stranger in a strange land than ever. The lords' eyes are condescending and the ladies gossip about her behind her back. She wishes she could gut them all.)


	4. Yearner

It's been so long since she's heard Spanish that when she hears the musketeer waiting in the hallway thump a hip against the doorframe and viciously curse in her mother tongue, her first reaction is to drop her psalter and run to the door to see him with her own eyes.

He's one of _les inséperables_ ; Anne's observed him before— how could she not? He's all the ladies whispered about for a week after his appearance on the arm of the beautiful _comtesse d'Auvergne_ at the last ball— but, now, she looks at his tawny skin and shining dark eyes and sees home.

"Sir musketeer—" and she's stumbling over her words, she hasn't fumbled with French like this since her first year in Paris and she's sixteen now and so embarrassed but she can't stop it, she's so excited— "where are you from?"

His eyes widen and he straightens abruptly from where he'd been bent, muttering, over his right leg. "Your Majesty!"

" _Por favor, de dónde es usted_?" she asks again, desperate to hear the lilting syllables of her childhood.

" _Cerca de_ Madrid, _Alteza_ ," he says quickly. "Alcalá de Henares."

"I know it," she breathes, nearly disbelieving. "I visited once as a child. To see the white storks."

His accent is like hers.

He raises his eyes to her face briefly, then dips them back down. "I apologize for my foul language. I did not know anyone was listening."

"Please, do not think on it," she murmurs, "I did not even hear your words." _Just that you sound like home._

(Ana flutters a bit in her chest. Anne groans. She knows what this means.)


	5. Giver

"Do you miss it?" Anne's being nosy but she can't help herself. She craves her language so badly it aches, and he's the only one who can understand.

The guarding musketeer's hand jumps to his hip and she knows she's startled him, walking in the corridor. "Your Majesty!"

"I'm sorry. My sudden leaping out at you seems to have become a pattern," she murmurs.

He smiles and bows. "It's only a pleasure to be in your presence."

"I must apologize again, however, for my prying," she starts, for him to wave a gloved hand.

"Truly, Majesty, I do not mind." He smiles again and Ana perks up. "Do I miss what?"

" _Home_ ," she says, and she knows he can hear the longing in her voice. She doesn't miss the flash of sympathy in his eyes either.

"I have not called Spain home in many years, Majesty," the musketeer tells her gently, "and Paris is my life now. I love the city, for all its clutter and chaos and surprisingly violent women—" he flushes suddenly at the last addition, eyes widening, "—apologies, Majesty."

(For the first time, she realizes how _young_ he is— certainly a man now, not a boy, but lean and vibrant with youth. She wonders how much older he is than her seventeen years.)

Against her will, a small smile quirks her lips at his boldness. She gives him an out by pretending she did not hear his slip. "So, you are a true Parisian now.

"Mostly so," he admits. "I do not miss Alcalá de Henares. But I do miss my mother and sisters." At her questioning gaze, he explains, "They remained in the city after I left. I wanted adventure and, to be honest, escape from the routine. I never liked standing still. But I visit, sometimes. When we have leave."

"When did you last go?" she asks, wanting to know more about this man, so familiar yet so different.

He thinks. "Maybe three years back? I had just celebrated twenty-one. A golden birthday."

_So, seven years older. The king is only two._

On impulse, she reaches out to lightly touch his arm. His eyes flick immediately to hers and hold her gaze in a way no one in court dares to do, and she swallows, straightening her spine. "Well, then. It seems time for another leave, yes?"

He breaks slowly into a grin. "Majesty, are you grounding me?"

Despite the humor in his words, the reminder of what she's left seeps heavy into her heart. She turns her head. "Maybe I'm just living vicariously through you, _don mosquetero_."

His smile fades too, replaced by a quiet understanding. He lightly covers her hand on his harm with his own. "I appreciate your kindness, Majesty. I should love to return for a visit."

"Then, yes," and she gives him an impish smirk that feels alien on her face, "I'm grounding you."

_Be Anne, Anne, Anne._

"I'll inform Treville, then," she says briskly, removing her hand and stepping back. "Now, shoo. You have a trip to plan."

He grins happily, lightheartedness returning to his angular features. " _Claro, Alteza_."

Before he goes, Anne stops him one more time. "What is your name?"

He gives her a bow, letting his eyes flick laughingly up to hers. She flushes and instantly hates herself. " _Me llamo_ Aramis, _Alteza_. Aramis René d'Herblay."

" _Un placer conocerle_ , Aramis," she murmurs back, and watches him go.

_My name is Anne._

_Me llamo Ana._

 

* * *

 

When he returns, she finds a beautiful fan of white stork feathers left on her boudoir.


	6. Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: aftermath of miscarriage.

Anne is eighteen and bleeding out and the king will not say her name.

One day, _les inséparables_ come to the audiences to report, sans Aramis. She straightens up in her throne, startled from the daze so familiar to her these days after the miscarriage. He's been gone for several weeks but that's normal for Treville's musketeers; what's not normal is the unit coming to offer information to the king without their third. She's often seen them wait to unite before reporting.

Their leader bows and they sweep from the room. She quickly whispers an excuse to the king who won't say her name and dashes after them. "Sir musketeers!" she calls.

They spin, eyes widening. "Your Majesty," the leader says, sweeping into a shallow, elegant bow. She remembers Treville calling him Athos. "What may we do for you?"

"Where is Aramis?" she asks. She doesn't expect the tensed jaws and flickering eyes she receives and it disconcerts her. " _Monsieur_ Athos, _where is Aramis_?"

"He was severely injured during a training exercise in Savoy, Your Majesty," the other musketeer says quietly. She sees the cords in his neck flex as he swallows hard. "He's not recovered enough for duty."

"Oh," she murmurs. "I'm truly sorry." She is. The thought of her musketeer in pain makes her heart ache.

Athos dips his head. "As are we all, Majesty. By your leave." She nods permission and the two stride off.

 _When did Aramis become her musketeer?_ She damns Ana with all her soul. _Be Habsburg. Be Infanta._

(She is Anne and she is Ana and, somewhere near, Aramis is bleeding out, too.)

 

* * *

 

She hears of the massacre later and weeps and weeps. Her ladies flutter and fret and she wishes she were dead.

(Anne dreams of a laughing not-quite-baby, tiny and safe and warm in her arms. She dreams of red poppies, scarlet on snow. She dreams of Spain.)


	7. Loser

"How are you? I heard. About what happened."

"Cold."

"I'm sorry."

"How are you? I heard, too."

"Empty."

"I'm sorry."

That's all they say today.


	8. Fighter

_The visit to the prison could have gone better,_ Anne thinks blandly as Athos informs the king what happened and what the musketeers are doing at the moment to catch Vadim. The Gascon boy seemingly adopted by Aramis, Porthos, and Athos is undercover now. There is damage to the prison. The queen is unharmed.

That the queen is unharmed, she muses, might be the funniest thing she's heard in her life. She's dealt with the violence of politics and being a woman for nineteen years. She has her share of scars.

_His blood had been on her fingertips after she touched his face. She'd washed her hands fiercely until they turned red but she could still feel the heat, burning the pads of her fingers._

She hasn't had a panic attack in front of anyone since she was thirteen.

_"It's okay."_

She hadn't been able to breathe until he held her.

_"I've got you."_


	9. Savior

When Anne sees Aramis' crucifix— _her crucifix_ — around Ninon's swanlike neck, she is filled with self-hatred, that any man could make her resent a woman as brilliant, as _targeted_  as Ninon.

(She wonders if he thinks of the crucifix hanging between the comtesse's breasts, and seethes.)

She is twenty.


	10. Lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: implied sexual context.

Oh. _Oh_.

She was almost killed this morning and they could die in this abbey tomorrow but Aramis' mouth is between her legs and she's going to—

 _Oh_.


	11. An Interlude: Worshipper

"The king may not listen to them, Cardinal, but he will most certainly listen to _me._ "

(Aramis isn't normally prone to hero worship but he feels something akin to it as he watches Anne of Austria force Cardinal Richelieu to the floor with the cold fury of her presence.)

Athos kicks him hard in the back of the leg and hisses, "I swear to God, if you don't stop staring at her, I will kill you here and now."

"Worth it," he breathes back, unable to strip his eyes away from the drama playing out in front of them. Richelieu's nearly sobbing into the queen's skirts. _Ah, revenge is sweet._ "She's magnificent."

Athos boots him with more force. "Stay in your damn place, musketeer."

(And, oh, he would, but the click of Anne's heels and the sway of her hips as she stalks towards the prone cardinal replays over and over in his head and he nearly licks his lips.)

"What's wrong with him?" Porthos mutters to Athos, jerking his head at Aramis as the marksman drifts off into his own thoughts with a dreamy smile playing on his lips.

"Everything," Athos growls back. "Do us all a favor— next time you're sparring, maim him. Potentially permanently."

"Ah." Porthos is quiet for a moment. "Should I ask—?"

" _No._ "


	12. Survivor

When Aramis tumbles from the window in a shower of shattered glass, she dies.

When he appears in the doorway, chest heaving and eyes frantically seeking out her own, she lives.

(It's as simple as that.)


	13. Receiver

Louis has thrown a ball in honor of the birth of her son and Anne's tired out of her mind. Her cheeks hurt from giving simpering guests her mother's polite, cold smile of welcome. She wishes she had a drink and a warm bath.

The lords and ladies of the court spin around her, decked in frippery and dripping with jewels. She's not naive enough to believe any of them view this ball as less than a display of social hierarchy, but for a moment she lets herself consider the dancing through the eyes of her insecure thirteen-year-old self, taking in the beautiful women and dashing men at the Spanish court with abstract awe.

Her hardened politician's side cuts that train of thought off quickly. It's that kind of vulnerability that got her in trouble in the French court in the first place, a wide-eyed child looking for friends where there only nested vipers trying to win her ear. She'd rapidly learned their venom stung surprisingly painfully once directed her way after realizing that under her doll-like delicacy rested a backbone of steel. She hasn't made that mistake again.

Anne huffs, bored of the game. The king is off dancing with that Milady de Winter and she purposefully lets her glance run off them like water. The shame of it burns in her chest but she is _Habsburg_. She does not flinch.

"Your Majesty," Constance's voice sounds at her ear, out-of-breath.

She chances a glance at her friend, smirking when she sees Constance's flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. _D'Artagnan._ "Ah. And how did our musketeer manage to sneak into the palace this time?"

The auburn-haired woman blushes scarlet. "Um. The, uh, scullery door in the kitchen. The cooks, well, they— they like him and let him in sometimes when he wants to avoid the guards, oh, please don't tell, Majesty!" she finishes breathlessly, beseeching.

Anne can't help but laugh. "Of course, dear. I'm glad you were able to see him tonight." She doesn't begrudge her friend this hard-claimed happiness. At least one of them can see the man she loves this evening, and others. She sighs. Her musketeer would be at the garrison with his brothers now. She closes her eyes, briefly imagining his cheeky grin and crinkled eyes when he laughs. He's always chuckling when he's with Porthos and Athos, as if to purposefully lighten Athos' endless gloom and bring Porthos' scattered attention back to ground. She hasn't seen him interact as much with D'Artagnan, but the Gascon seems to have integrated himself seamlessly into the trio and Aramis has always liked youngsters, even just a young man himself.

She counts; he'd have just celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday. The thought of the celebratory antics the musketeers might have gotten up to forced her lips into a reluctant smile. They sometimes remind her of rambunctious puppies more than the hardened soldiers she knows them to be.

Constance leans in closer, almost pressed against Anne's side, and takes Anne's hand; Anne feels her friend press a tiny slip of paper into her palm and she looks up at her questioningly. Constance clears her throat. "I was asked to bring this to you. Quietly. By our... mutual friend." Her tone is warm and Anne's heart flutters with love for this wonderful woman she's so lucky to call friend.

"Thank you," she murmurs back, and tucks the slip of paper into her bodice as surreptitiously as she can, turning her attention back to the ball and wiping her exhaustion from her features. Long years of training have made her able to don the mask of neutrality more easily than she can slip back into authenticity. It's safe behind the mask. She finds herself wishing sometimes it was the only face she had to wear.

"My queen," and Anne looks down from her dais at Louis, flushed with drink, "please, share a dance with me."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Milady sip from a goblet of wine, observing her back with cat-green eyes. The woman's red lips smirk at her over the glass rim, taunting. Anne raises her chin and rises with as much grace as she can— which, having been taught to walk from birth with a book balancing on her head, is a considerable amount— to take the king's hand and let her lead her in an overly-exuberant waltz. She does not comment on the fact that the music is very conspicuously _not_ a waltz. The king does as the king does, after all, her boy-king still.

(She wonders if she's really ever been his.)

 

* * *

 

In her chambers, finally granted the bath for which she so desperately yearned at the ball, Anne can pull the slip of paper Constance pressed into her hand out of her bodice. It's only the size of her smallest finger, Spanish words written spiky and dark against the translucent paper. _The gardens, midnight. My turn._

Somehow Anne manages to sneak past her sleeping ladies and around the yawning guards to the kitchens. Luckily, because of the late hour, only the scullery maid is in the biggest room, sleepily rolling out pastry dough for the next morning, and Anne slips past her quietly in the shadows to the scullery door. _Bless Constance and D'Artagnan, ridiculous in their antics as they are._

The night air is sweet and warm on her face as she treads through the grass with slippered feet. Anne's always appreciated her September birthday, coming always just as the leaves start to burn crimson and tangerine and brilliant gold, and tonight is a stunning example of the glory of autumn climate. She can't help raising her face to the sky and savoring the breeze caressing her face like a lover's lips. Her silky night shift curls around her legs and winds against her torso, nudging open her cloak to reveal the white of the fabric. She thinks she looks a little like she's wearing a gown made of moonlight.

Winding her way deeper into the voluminous gardens, Anne's skin prickles with a not-unwelcome sensation of fire slowly sweeping into her body and she turns to see her musketeer standing behind her under the dropping canopy of a weeping willow. He smiles, a flash of white teeth, and then she's drifting to him as if a dream. "Aramis."

Her musketeer bows, sweeping his eyes down politely. "Majesty." His eyelashes brush like dark fans over the tops of his cheeks, long enough to drive a woman mad with jealousy, and she finds herself struck again by how _pretty_ the man is. He looks up again, just a few steps away, making her breath catch with his shining gaze. "I wasn't sure if you'd come."

"This is the last time," she decides she will say, like a sane woman. "I missed you tonight," she says instead. _No!_

Aramis' eyes widen ever so slightly and his mouth parts the tiniest amount. She hates how attractive wonder is on the man. "Then I might count myself the luckiest man in the world," he breathes out, and she _falls._ Hard. _Puta corazón. Puta amor. Puta Ana. Bad, bad, bad._

(Oh, but Aramis is good, good, good. Just standing near his him feels like honey sliding warm over her bones. She melts around him.)

"How is your son?" he asks, and the longing in his voice makes her want to cry.

"Louis is well," she responds instead, "he grows more and more every day. I try and visit him as often as the court allows, and tell him my stories." She swallows. "I want his favorite to be when a dashing knight saved a princess from certain death and loved her back to life."

Aramis closes his eyes, a grief she understands only too well flickering over his lovely features before he looks up at her with soft eyes. "Come here," he whispers, reaching out a hand to her. "Dance with me."

She steps— almost collapses, if she's honest with herself— into his arms, unable to bear the distance between them any longer. And, God in Heaven, he feels like a flame against her. She hasn't held him in her arms since their moments in the convent and, oh, she has ach _e_ d for his warmth, his solid strength seeping into her. He pulls her flush against him, wrapping an arm around her waist and cradling her hand in his, pressing it to his lips before pulling her into a slow, languid waltz.

Where the king had yanked her along in his energetic dance earlier, Aramis leads her sweetly. His natural grace makes his steps fluid and she follows easily, savoring the lack of space between them. She thinks he might have been a dancer if not for his love of the sword.

"Did you learn to dance in Spain?" she wonder out loud, some of the unfading ache for _home_ roughening her voice.

Her musketeer's lips curl up in a warm smile. "My mother loved the folk dances of the region. She was brought up in Italy, though, so she taught us some of the Italian dances as well. None of us were as good, though. She had very agile footwork." The way he phrases that— so evaluative, the soldier he is seeping through— makes Anne giggle. He tugs her hand back to his mouth, nipping at her knuckle to elicit a tiny gasp, her lips falling open at the sharp sensation. "What's so funny, Majesty?"

"You," she says, and suddenly, locked in his gaze again, trapped against his chest by the circle of his powerful arms, it's not funny anymore. All she can see is the heat in sinfully dark eyes. "Oh." And she can't breathe as he bites at her again, lips lingering in a feathery caress over her fingers. "Aramis," she pleads, not knowing what she's begging for but _needing_ him, and he's cradling her head and pulling her up to him and his mouth is on hers and she wants to die there in his arms.

As he kisses her, Aramis sways them in their gentle circles still, dancing while he so sweetly elicits tiny panted breaths and shudders from her. She clings to him, brushing her mouth to his with slow, light kisses aching with love. The moment feels like honey poured down over them, golden.

 

* * *

 

All too soon, she must pull away, missing his touch the minute she goes. "My ladies will notice me missing if they wake up. I must return."

"Stay a minute more," Aramis whispers, resting his forehead against hers. "There is no light when I am not with you. Let me savor this last moment before I'm lost in darkness again," he pleads, and Anne can't say no, for every sense in her body begs for his nearness. The willow's green canopy falls around them, shielding them from the world that so strives to keep them apart. She never wants to wake up from this beautiful dream.

"I love you," she says.

Her musketeer closes his eyes. " _Reina._ Please, don't say something you don't mean, for I can't take it."

"Aramis," and she reaches to his cheek, gently presses him to face her, suddenly unafraid, "I've never held anyone beloved as I do you. _I love you,_ " she repeats, needing him to believe her more than she's ever needed anything before.

His eyes widen and he stares at her with the same wonder as before. "Ana—"

(It's the first time he's called her by her name, by anything other than "Majesty.")

"Do you love me?" she asks before she can stop herself, feeling herself flushing dark red at her bluntness. Icy terror spikes in her stomach at the thought he might not, and she's ceded invaluable vulnerability to a man who does not return it. "I'm sorry. You don't have to—"

"I love you." His words tumble over each other as he rushes to get them out. "Ana, I love you, I love you like I need to breathe, like I was missing a limb until I found you—"

She shuts his babbling up by kissing him again.

 

* * *

 

She's spent too much time in the gardens to be undiscovered, she knows, but as she creeps back into her rooms the only signs her lady-in-waiting noticed her absence is a sleepy yawn and, "I hope the king is well, Your Majesty."

 _Ah._ Well, the assumption that she was sharing the king's bed is certainly better than the truth: that she was out kissing a musketeer whom she loves so desperately that, even having just parted, she can only think of when she can see him again.

"He is," she murmurs back and slips back into her too-big-too-empty bed. She hopes she'll dream of weeping willows and children with dark, dark eyes.

 


	14. Dancer

Anne is a very good queen.

She is beautiful, as a woman should be. She is supportive, as a wife should be. She is polite, as a lady should be. She is authoritative, as a monarch should be.

She's not sure what a Spaniard in a French court should be, but she knows that when she meets Aramis' gaze in audience or passing in the halls, it's so soft tears sting her eyes.

("My queen," he murmurs with the gentlest bow, head tilting up to gaze at her through thick lashes.)

("Monsieur Aramis," she responds quietly as she brushes past him.)

Yes, she's a very good queen, but, oh, the musketeer makes it very complicated when he looks at her like that.


	15. Defender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: aftermath of and flashbacks to sexual assault; PTSD related to sexual assault.

The king puts up with her avoidance of his touch for a month before he snaps at her. "Anne, what is wrong with you?"

She tries not to let her irritation show, straight-backed at her boudoir despite her exhaustion ( _her!_ Anne of Austria! _As if_ she would show that much weakness in front of a _Bourbon_ ). "I'm very tired, Louis."

The man scowls petulantly. "I know your mannerisms when you're tired. You retire early and spend time daydreaming like a poet instead of acting like a proper queen. This... _pique_... is something else entirely."

(She's too affronted by his slight on her performance as monarch to respond immediately.)

"Anne," Louis says, and his softened tone has her hackles raising, "why will you not let me touch you as I have?"

"M-my king?" She did not just stutter. _Infantas_ do _not_ stutter.  _N_ _ot like this._

He looks her in the eyes, and, oh, her boy-king has a gentleness to his gaze that has Ana fluttering anxiously in her chest. Damn the man and his odd spells of sensitivity. "What did Rochefort do to you?"

( _I love you. Tell me you feel the same_. She feels his touch like trails of ink over her skin, black and watery and seeping through every layer of her to puddle, stagnant and stinking, in her soul.)

She's not ready for this. She can't open herself back up to a man who looked her in the eye when she begged him for help and condemned her to death. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Anne—"

"You have duties to take care of right now." She lifts her head up and stares him hard in the eyes. She knows her eyes look like flint. "I am _fine_." The _leave me alone_ echoes stonily in her voice. 

 _(You did not believe me then. Why should I gift you the vulnerability you want now?_   She is Habsburg. She does not forgive, nor does she forget.)

Louis swallows. He may care, may realize the ice in her voice and her spine is wrong wrong wrong, but he flees just the same from responsibility as he always has. "I've just remembered I have a meeting. A council. I will visit again later, yes?" He beats a hasty retreat from her chambers and she closes her eyes against stinging tears as the door slams.

( _I know you love me!_ Blood drips hot between her fingers and she can feel bruises forming on her wrists where he'd seized her—she'd _trusted_ him!—)

She has to run to the chamber pot before the contents of her stomach make a surprise appearance.

 

* * *

 

Anne has nightmares about hands tearing away her bodice and into the flesh of her chest, pulling at her exposed ribcage as if to gouge out her heart. She screams herself awake on her twenty-first birthday and sobs when she realizes Aramis is still gone.


	16. Ruler

The first day Aramis is gone, Anne of Austria doesn't look at the space he should be filling in the row of musketeers, not even once.

( _Papá_  would be proud.)

 

* * *

 

The second day Aramis is gone, Anne of Austria permits herself one glance out of the corner of her eye to see if she can catch a glimpse of a blue sash or the glint of armor. When nothing catches her attention, she raises her chin and locks her stare back on her waiting court. If her eyes are wetter than before, it's not her problem.

 

* * *

 

The third day Aramis is gone, Anne of Austria goes looking for Athos or Porthos to find answers as to the marksman's absence. Treville heads her off with a shake of his graying head as she moves to enter the garrison. "Majesty, you shouldn't be here—"

"I need to see him," she says lowly.

"Aramis isn't here," D'Artagnan says from behind her. She turns and he swallows and bows deeply. "We're, um, not sure quite where he is. Your Majesty."

Anne of Austria is not sure what expression is on her face but she's certain _Papá_  would _not_ approve. "Thank you."

 

* * *

 

The fourth day Aramis is gone, Anne of Austria hurls an antique vase against the wall of her room. She snaps at the king when he comes to visit and he retreats, dejected and drooping like a kicked dog. She feels awful.

She yearns for Aramis like one of her lungs has disappeared with him.

 

* * *

The second week Aramis is gone, Anne of Austria paces outside the garrison until Porthos comes to the gate.

"Is he—"

"No, Majesty."

 

* * *

 

The sixth month Aramis is gone, Constance finally tells her he's left for good.

That winter is very very cold.

She doesn't speak to Louis much.

 

* * *

 

The first year Aramis is gone, Louis excitedly babbles in baby French when she scoops him up in her arms to play. She rubs her nose against his tiny button one, wishing she were permitted to speak to her son in her native tongue.

(She doesn't think about how Spanish is his father's native tongue as well.)

 

* * *

 

The second year Aramis is gone, she teaches her son Spanish curse words in a fit of rebellion and hides a smile behind a dainty palm when Louis belts one out in front of the Spanish ambassador.

After that, her husband stops speaking to her altogether other than to give her the courtly attention of a king to his queen. The musketeers leave for war and Constance exits her service to manage the garrison tavern.

She briefly wonders if her friends have abandoned her on purpose.

 

* * *

 

The fourth year Aramis is gone, she is twenty-five and the Spanish Queen and rules her vicious court with icy resolve. Louis' silence stings her still, but he is just a man and she will never break at a man's will.

Her son's eyes are warm and brown and perfect and sometimes she finds herself staring at his face, tracing the sharpening lines of his cheeks as he loses his baby fat.

She's not sure what she's searching for in his features until she steps into her gardens and finds that same dark gaze locked on hers.

(Ana weeps. Anne of Austria turns her head away.)

 


	17. Redeemer

When Aramis' eyes meet Anne's for the first time in years, she wonders what grievous sin she's unknowingly committed to be condemned to this level of Hell, her worst temptation standing directly in front of her with that old wonder in his gaze.

(He's still _so_ beautiful, she notes as if in a dream, still as broad-shouldered and lithe in his leather as she remembers. Still as dangerous as she remembers.)

"When I returned to Paris, it felt like four years had passed in a moment," he says, jarring her from her thoughts, "and now it feels like forever." The musketeer's gaze follows her playful son and, despite the strain in his jaw, softens so deeply it makes her want to weep. "He's big." She thinks he looks at the child with the desperation of a starving man. "He's grown so tall."

(The musketeer's unexpected proximity sends fire running over her skin and the animal need to _runrunrun_ screaming through her veins.)

_He'll burn me alive._

Her words choke in her throat; she has to swallow and start again. "Why are you here?"

"To stand witness against the Duke of Orleans." Aramis still looks shattered, looking at her with that damn stare. She can't tear hers away from him, running her eyes over his tall frame, trying to comprehend how, in less than a minute, her entire world has fractured into such vicious pieces.

 _Please, oh, God, please move away from me. I can't bear this._ She considers herself a strong queen, prides herself on the cool timbre of her voice and the dominance she exerts over a space by sheer presence, but the marksman obliterates that control with his very existence. _Let me go, oh, let me go._ His hot eyes strip her soul naked, bare her to the bone, and she thinks she'll die under the weight of it. She hates herself for desiring the conflagration.

(She does not acknowledge the little voice in her head pleading with her to dash to him, to press herself against him and lose herself in his coiled, straining power. That damned voice is what first lead her to ruin and she has sworn she will never be ruined again.)

Anne can't stand the space between them any longer, can't stand her body's yearning for her once-lover's nearness, and retreats behind the frosty mask she's relied on as a defense for so long. "Then do so." She pretends her voice doesn't tremble. When she raises her eyes to his, she imagines his lovely face replaced by Gaston's loathsome visage and lets her gaze harden.

_Be the Ice Queen. You are Queen Anne of France, not Ana. Ana died in the convent in Aramis' arms, and the dead do not speak._

Aramis' tiny flinch tastes like copper on her tongue. "Majesty." His bow is coolly formal, as if responding to an unacquainted superior. She tells herself (in a Very Official Manner that would make her father proud) that he is a stranger to her now, as she to him, and it is only proper to be addressed as such as his queen.

( _"My queen," he gasps when she fists her hands in his hair and tugs his mouth to hers, "_ reina querida, reina hermosa _, anyone would find proof of God's love in your perfection—!"_ )

He is a stranger to her, yes, and she just a superior.

( _"Beloved Aramis—" panting, "Aramis!"_ )

Only his queen.

( _"Yes,_ querida _, let go.")_

( _"I can't, it's too much—!")_

 _("I've got you._ ")

Only his.

(" _Aramis— please—_ ")

( _Sweet Ana, that's it, come for me—_ ")

She flees.


End file.
